


The Dog Thief and Other Stories

by theladyscribe



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pittsburgh Penguins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:35:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3569903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of tumblr one-shots, mostly featuring Sid/Geno.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dog Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From bluelinedisaster's prompt: _I think I may have stolen your dog on accident sorry_

Geno sees the dog outside the convenience store on his way from picking up his dry cleaning for his date tonight, and if it weren’t 37°C, he’d leave it, but this dog is panting, obviously overheated, and there’s no owner in sight. He perhaps can be forgiven for deciding to take--he squints at the tag--Tucker home with him.

The local no-kill shelter is closed to the public for the day, so he decides he'll call them to report Tucker's owner for abuse tomorrow. Until then, Tucker can stay with him.

Tucker, for his part, seems perfectly content to get into Geno's car, sticking his nose in the vent when Geno blasts the A/C.

*

Horny calls to remind Geno about his date--as if he could forget. "Sid said he'd be there at six-thirty, and he's never late," Horny says over the speaker phone, "so you better get your ass in gear and be on time for once, G."

"Yes, yes, I'm know, you said," Geno huffs, buttoning his shirt while Tucker watches him. It's six o'clock, so he has plenty of time.

"Don't freak out if he's kind of awkward at first; Sid can be shy when you--"

"Have to go, can't be late," Geno cuts him off, tapping out of the call and grabbing his keys before he heads out the door.

*

Despite Horny's dire warnings, Sid is nearly twenty minutes late and looks, well, 'disheveled' would be polite, but _miserable_ would be accurate. Geno watches him approach with a sinking feeling, because Sid is really cute but this does not bode well.

"Sorry I'm late," Sid says, collapsing into the chair across from Geno. "I spent the afternoon at the police station."

Geno frowns in concern; he was pretty sure Horny said Sid was a fireman, not a police officer. "Everything okay?" he asks.

Sid runs his hands through his hair and takes a deep breath. "No," he says in a voice that sounds just shy of tears. "Someone stole my dog."

"What?"

"Yeah. We went for a run, and then I realized I didn't have enough water for both of us, so I stopped at the market on Broad and left him outside, and when I came back, he was gone."

Sid keeps talking, but Geno doesn't hear him for the blood rushing in his ears. The sinking feeling in his gut has given way to a combination of nausea and mortification. It's all he can do to get out, "What your dog's name?"

Sid quirks a small smile. "Tucker. He's a Catahula leopard dog, want to see a picture?"

Geno shakes his head and doesn't miss the disappointment in Sid's eyes. Geno stares down at the table. "Think I know where dog is, Sid."

"What? How could you?"

Geno runs a finger along the edge of the table. "Did some errands today, had to stop at bank, pick up dry cleaning for tonight. Saw a dog outside a store, obviously overheat, get too hot in the sun. Think, owner must not care, let dog wander alone in this heat. So take puppy home with me, plan call shelter in morning."

Sid's laughter startles Geno, and he darts a look upward. There are tears in Sid's eyes, and his giggles sound a little hysterical. "Oh my god," Sid gasps after a moment. "You can't be serious."

Geno scowls. "Thought bad owner, wanted to help poor puppy."

"No, no," Sid shakes his head and takes a deep breath. "I just--what are the _odds_? I spent all afternoon panicking that Tuck had run off or been taken by dog-fighters or something, and this whole time--it was just you. He was fine." His gaze sharpens. "He is fine, right?"

Geno allows himself a small smile. "Yes, Tucker fine. Good dog, like him very much."

Sid smiles back at him. "Yeah, me too."


	2. Post-Game Milkshakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an anonymous prompt: _Geno taking care of Sid after a tough game against the Flyers (Pens won, but both the Flyers fans and players (refs?) were even harder on Sid than usual/he takes it harder than usual after the game), and Sid let him because that's part of how he takes care of Geno._

Sid still hasn’t relaxed by the time they land in Pittsburgh after a hard-fought win against the Flyers, so Geno carefully bundles him into the car and drives them home. He makes one stop, at a 24-hour diner, to pick up milkshakes (peanut butter for Sid and birthday cake for himself), which he gives to Sid, who takes them with barely a twitch.

The neighborhood is hushed when they arrive home, all the neighbors long gone to bed, and Geno tips his head back to look at the stars in the cold night sky.

"What’re you looking at?" Sid asks, tapping his fingers along Geno’s lower spine.

Geno twists to look back at Sid and says, “Looks nice up there, you know?”

Geno watches Sid’s eyes in the light from the porch as they shift from his face up to the sky. When Sid looks back at him, there’s a smile on his face. “If we stay out here too long, our milkshakes will melt.”

Geno doesn’t really care about the milkshakes, but he hustles Sid inside anyway.


	3. Cosplay AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this prompt: _cosplaying batman during my first comic con and i meet you in your superman costume, which leaves little to the imagination and should be illegal au._

The thing nobody tells you about cosplay is that after a couple of hours, it is seriously uncomfortable to walk around in lycra and a rubber mask. It is even worse when you are stopped every five feet so people can get their photo taken with “the best Adam West Batman ever, dude, seriously.”

To say Sid regrets his life choices would be an understatement.

He’s waiting in line for a Carol Corps panel when somebody tugs on his cape and a voice behind him says, “Your costume missing something. You need Robin.”

Sid turns to ask if the guy is volunteering, but the words don’t come out of his mouth. The guy is in a skin-tight replica of Superman’s _Red Son_ suit, the hammer and sickle emblazoned on his chest. Sid’s eyes swoop down of their own volition, and yeah, the suit leaves pretty much nothing to the imagination.

Sid swallows and drags his eyes back up to find the guy smirking at him. “Nice costume,” Sid says faintly.

"Thanks. Am Russian, you know. Russian Superman best." He strikes a pose, hands on hips, grinning widely.

Sid finds himself smiling helplessly back.


	4. X-Men AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this prompt: _the first time sid sees geno heal himself, he can't look away._

When he catches him staring, Geno scowls and adjusts his toque to hide the rapidly-healing cut high on his cheek. Sid drops his gaze to Geno’s hands on the steering wheel, the cuts where the knife blades had shot from between his knuckles are already gone, not even scars to mark them.

"What you looking at?" Geno snaps, one hand dropping to fiddle with the staticky radio.

"Does it hurt?" Sid asks quietly, nodding toward Geno’s hands.

Geno doesn't speak for a long moment, clenching his fingers around the steering wheel. He glances over at Sid before cutting his eyes back to the road. "Every time."


	5. Don't Eat the Cheeseballs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the first sentence meme, prompted by somanyfandomssolittletime.

"Don’t eat the cheeseballs." A hand swats the cracker and cheese from Zhenya’s fingers. Dumbfounded, he turns to see one of the tuxedoed servers, tray of champagne in the hand _not_ swatting food from Geno's hands.

Zhenya frowns but turns back to the buffet. He reaches for the pinwheels; they look fresh and like they might have some meat in them. The server grabs his hand before he can get to the tongs.

"Trust me," the server continues, "you’ll be sick all night if you eat that."

Zhenya has no choice but to pout at him. “What good to eat, then?” he asks, only a little mulishly.

"The cheesecake’s decent. And the strawberries are pretty good, because they’re in season."

"I’m want real food," Zhenya grumbles. It's been a long time since the brunch the groom's party had this morning.

The guy fails at holding back a snort. “Look, I gotta take these drinks around, but I can maybe bring something back from the kitchen for you? Something that won’t give you food poisoning?”

Zhenya almost says no, but the guy looks—hopeful. “Okay.”

"Okay. Great. I’ll be—I’ll be back." He smiles crookedly and turns to leave.


	6. Neighbors AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sorry to bother," Tall Russian Guy rumbles, looking a little embarrassed in the dim light of Sid's flashlight. "I'm just move here, is no lights?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based on two prompts: _its the dead of winter and our apartment building had a power outage. i live alone, you live alone, we should combine forces and share body heat under a pile of blankets and maybe kiss a little au._
> 
> _a fic where meddling friends that meddle in very bizarrely nerdy ways like sell the toaster on craigslist so you have to ask your hot neighbor to his toaster because you need to eat your poptarts before your job interview because it’s your good luck routine and hot neighbor is like a huge dork that agrees but also criticizes your poptart choices and asks how the interview went four days later in the hall_
> 
> Sort of amnestyed, because I don't think I'm ever going to write the third part that I initially intended to write.

Sid hates this kind of weather. Freezing rain is the worst. It's already coated the windows in a sheet of ice or he'd be able to watch the icicles forming on the trees. And the cars. And the powerlines. If he lived in a Thomas Kincaid painting, he supposes it would be romantic, the entire street lit in that strange wintery glow that comes from snow clouds and light pollution. In reality, it's mostly just annoying, because he'll have to clear the ice from his car to get to work in the morning. And there's also the chance that the icicles will get too heavy on the powerlines and they'll have an outage on their hands.

It's about five seconds after he has this thought that the power goes out, plunging both his apartment and the street outside into darkness.

Sid sighs and feels his way into the front hallway for his emergency kit. He can hear his upstairs neighbors moving around, too, probably Vero checking on their daughter while Marc-Andre gathers up extra blankets. Sid decides to do likewise, pulling the wool blankets his mom gave him for Christmas out of the closet along with the emergency kit.

He's just gotten settled in his living room with the pile of blankets and the dull glow of one of his battery-powered lamps and a history of the RCMP when someone starts banging on his door.

Thinking it might be Marc-Andre or Vero, in need of extra batteries, he hurries back down the hall and opens the door mid-knock.

It's neither of them. It's the tall Russian guy who just moved in across the hall.

"Sorry to bother," Tall Russian Guy rumbles, looking a little embarrassed in the dim light of Sid's flashlight. "I'm just move here, is no lights?"

"Oh," says Sid. "Do you need to borrow a flashlight?"

Tall Russian Guy smiles. "Would be nice, you know, could also borrow blankets? Gets cold here, yes?"

Sid looks at him in alarm. "You don't have extra blankets? Would you like to come in?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just starts walking back down the hall to the living room. "I was thinking about heating up some milk for cocoa; I've got a camp stove I use when the power goes out, and warm liquids can help keep your core temperature up."

He's in the kitchen and pulling the milk out of the fridge before he even realizes that Tall Russian Guy hasn't followed him.

Sid sticks his head in the hallway. "Are you — do you just want a flashlight? Because I can lend you a flashlight and you can go if you want."

The guy blinks for a moment, smile still on his face, though it looks more amused than before. "You always let strangers into home?"

"You're not a stranger, you're a neighbor."

"Not even know names," the guy points out. Which, well. Sid's never been very good at negotiating introductions.

"I'm Sid," he says, a little more huffily than he means to.

Tall Russian Guy looks like he's trying not to laugh. Sid feels like he should maybe be insulted, but mostly he thinks it's a good look on Tall Russian Guy.

"Call me Geno. Pleased to meet. Would like some cocoa, very much."

*

This is not a good day. Sid has to leave for an interview in twenty minutes, his poptarts are cold, and his toaster is _broken_.

He calls Marc-Andre in a panic, but the dickhead laughs at him before saying, “Vero tossed out our toaster when she decided we needed to eat healthy food.” He pauses. “Why don’t you ask your Russian neighbor? I bet he’d let you toast your buns.”

Sid doesn’t have a response for that, so he just hangs up on Marc’s cackle. He blows out a sigh, and before he can second-guess himself, he heads across the hall and knocks on his neighbor’s door.

Geno answers the door with his t-shirt halfway on, one arm out of its sleeve. “Hello, neighbor,” he says with a slightly confused smile.

"Can I borrow your toast?" Sid blurts. "I mean, toaster. Mine’s broken." He holds up his packet of poptarts, as if that explains everything.

Geno finishes putting his arm in his sleeve and steps back to let Sid in. “Kitchen like yours,” he says, starting down the hallway. “Can use what you need. I’m finish dress.”

"O-okay," Sid answers, only just realizing that Geno answered the door in just his t-shirt and a pair of boxer-briefs.

He's carefully taking the poptarts out of the toaster when Geno comes back, fully dressed in coveralls, work boots dangling by their laces from his hand.

"Need plate?" he asks as Sid shuffles the poptarts back and forth between his hands.

"Nope, I'm good," Sid says. "I'll just be going, then?" He starts heading for the door, but Geno stops him.

"You want tea? I make." There's a weird expression on Geno's face, and Sid isn't sure if the right answer is yes or no.

"Rain check?" he settles on. "I have an interview at the Discovery Centre, and I don't want to be late."

Geno's expression changes, and that's definitely a frown, which means Sid has given the wrong answer, and— "What is 'rain check'?"

"Oh. It's like, if you can't do something right now but want to do it later, you take a rain check."

Geno smiles, and he says, "Okay, I take rain check. Is date."


	7. The Ugly Duckling (Derrick Pouliot/Olli Maatta)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Geno," Derrick says a little uncertainly, "I think my boyfriend turned into a duck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt of Olli turning into an actual duckling on occasion.

"Geno," Derrick says a little uncertainly, "I think my boyfriend turned into a duck."

"What you mean?" Geno asks.

Derrick wonders if he made a mistake in calling him. Maybe he _should_ have called Sid like the Magical Emergency Plan says. It's just. "You like animals. I thought you'd know what to do."

"I'm not do magic," Geno scoffs. "Call Sid." Derrick isn't terribly surprised that he hangs up.

He sighs and dials Sid, who answers almost before it finishes the first ring. "Hey Derrick, Geno says Olli's turned into a duck?"

Derrick doesn't even ask how Sid got this information so fast. "Yeah," he says, despondently, "that or he switched places in time and space with one. Turning into a duck seems more likely, though."

"Okay, do you know when the transformation took place? Or if this has happened to him before?"

"Um," Derrick says, "no?" They haven't been dating long, which Sid should know, so he's not exactly up on Olli's magical history. He _thinks_ this would have come up in conversation by now, but maybe it's not talked about in Finland. He doesn't know. He kind of wishes he'd asked before, but it's not something he thought he'd _need_ to know.

"Derrick?" Sid interrupts his rising panic. "Listen, is it okay if G and I come over?"

"Yeah. Of course." He looks down at duck!Olli. "I think that'd be okay."

"Okay, great. We'll be there soon. Just hang tight."

Geno must have driven, because they arrive in half the time it would normally take to get from either of their places to his.

Derrick lets them in, clutching Olli tight in his hand.

"Can I see?" Geno asks, taking Olli without waiting for a response.

"Geno!" Sid chides, but Derrick waves him off.

"It's okay. I think he likes being held."

Geno sticks his tongue out and walks off toward the den, leaving Derrick with Sid. Sid has his concerned captain face on, and he leads Derrick into the kitchen. He starts a kettle of water to boil without even asking.

"You probably don't need to worry too much," Sid says while the kettle heats. "These things usually pass within twenty-four hours. I just wanted to make sure you're doing okay."

Derrick stares at Sid. It seems a little silly for them to have actually driven over, but he's learned to roll with things. Nobody ever warned him just how weird the NHL could be.

The kettle starts whistling, and Sid pours them each a cup of tea before Derrick finally says, "It was a bit of a shock, but I think we'll be alright."

Sid smiles encouragingly. "Good. We should probably check on Geno; he has a tendency to get a little overzealous in his—"

There's a loud crash from the den quickly followed by swearing in both Russian and Finnish. Derrick and Sid run in to find Geno under a human — and naked — Olli.

"You're back!" says Sid.

"Thank god," says Derrick.

"Get off me!" grunts Geno.

"Ugh, I thought I'd outgrown being a duckling," mutters Olli.


End file.
